Welcome back to the Sharpen Podcast, a podcast aimed at minimizing future outdoor accidents by way of storytelling.

Real people sharing real stories.

I'm Ashley Sopby, the creator and producer of this show.

And this is a bonus episode for all of my favorite sharpened

listeners. Today I talk with Douglas who owns a very small gear company called

Rope Light LLC. Tune into this episode to hear about how this episode came about and why he started this company.

I hope you enjoy. Well, welcome to the show Douglas. Thanks for

being here this evening with me. This is a bonus episode for all the listeners and so yeah Douglas

why don't you go ahead and tell everybody who you are?

My name is Douglas Ray and I live in Bellingham, Washington. I work as an educator and in my spare time I run a tiny little business called Rope Light or make custom splice gear for climbers and

ski mountaineers and canioniers and other people who use ropes. Very cool and

what kind of educator are you?

That's a long answer.

Because I work in the Bellingham School District specifically focused on kids with

significant behavior challenges and if you want the full explanation it

takes a whole episode. Okay well thanks for being an educator. That's important work. So you said he started a small

old company called Rope Light and that's why you reached out to me initially, right? Because you

listened to the last episode, the December 1st episode and then you emailed me so let's talk about that.

Well yeah and actually you said you wanted to hear why I started Roplight.

I started Roplight actually because I'm a part of Bellingham Mountain Rescue.

And initially I was just unhappy with some of the equipment we had,

specifically our litter bridle.

...